As President Obama considers airstrikes in Syria, readers discuss the threat to the United States posed by the Islamic State. Comments from Facebook and Twitter are edited for clarity and grammar:

It's time to abandon political partisanship. If you're an American, this adversary considers you — and all of us — an enemy to be treated without mercy.

— Rich Barnes

If President Obama were smart, he would pull us out of Iraq and Syria and let them handle their own affairs.

But he won't, and another head will be on his incompetent hands.

— Kenneth A Schmalbach

Let's agree for a moment that members of the Islamic State cannot be reasoned with. There can be no compromise, trade or settlement arranged to fix this quagmire.

Hopefully, the countries that Iraq is surrounded by will deal with the problem. To let the Islamic State gain ground and intimidate its neighbors and the world is unacceptable. Now is the time to engage!

— Jason Chumley

This is one thing we can do: Confiscate passports of those who would want to do harm to the United States and other non-Muslim countries.

Like a poisonous snake, the head of this movement needs to be chopped off. We need to eradicate this extremist, murderous organization at any cost.

— Peter Hoover

The Islamic State is a modern army, and its members are dedicated to destroying us. Find them wherever they are and destroy them.

— @octo82

The U.S. should leave the Middle East alone and focus on home.

— @matenje

Airstrikes must be followed by a strategy to empower moderate local forces to take over.

— @RegulationWonk

Stop the Islamic State with a decisive blow. We need to exhibit strength in that region, or we may not recover it.

— @ShawnRule

Airstrikes should be a collective effort to send the message that Islamic State is not welcome in modern civilization.

— @NotCoolPolitics

We need more than airstrikes. Evil needs to be exterminated, not picked off piece by piece.

— @countrydarts

The window for intervention in Syria closed a few years ago. It's the Islamic State or Bashar Assad. Both are bad choices.

— @Eli_W_Blake

Letter to the editor:

The Islamic State is very dangerous and a very real threat to the democratic world. The Islamic State is totalitarian, intolerant and willing to use violence to bring people into its fold. What can we do about it? We can try to reason with the Islamic militants. But if that fails, which it usually does, we have no choice except to meet force with force. It is justified to be intolerant of intolerance.